By Fernanda Sesto, student Program Assistant

To continue with the Student Entrepreneur Series, I am super excited to share the story of Hector Castillo Carvajal.

I came across Hector’s profile a year ago when I was researching about the experience of minority entrepreneurs. As someone who considers herself a “coffee addict”, I was amazed by the idea of a fellow Yellowjacket (University of Rochester) starting a coffee brand. Moreover, as a proud Latina myself 🇺🇾, it was great to see a young Latino 🇩🇴 making his way into the coffee industry.

Hector is the founder of Don Carvajal Cafe, a specialty coffee brand based in South Bronx that brings the flavor of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Costa Rica, Colombia and Brazil while being environmentally friendly and community oriented. He is a Business Marketing student at the University of Rochester who decided to take a leave of absence to focus on his business.

“In 2019, I was interning at an office in the Bronx and at that office there was a guy who used to brew coffee every morning and offer. It was really good coffee so one day I asked the guy “where can I buy this coffee? it’s really good and I want to bring some back home.” He said that it was a brand that the office used to work with but they didn’t sell it anymore. It was the first time I was having specialty coffee, I’d never had it before and you could taste the difference. So out of curiosity, I started researching the coffee industry. I was very intrigued, I looked at the numbers and they were huge. To me, it wasn’t about the money but it was about the opportunity.”

During the school year, Hector was taking Marketing 203: Principles of Marketing where he was assigned to work on a semester-long group project. The professor told the class to work on the creation of a business and marketing plan of either a company they come up with or one that already exists. Hector asked the professor if he could work on his coffee idea and once the professor was good with it, he pitched it to his group partners. The group didn’t have any other ideas in mind so they decided to move forward with it. Similarly to Shelley’s story, Hector’s classmates saw the project as an assignment only. However, he was serious about it.

“We researched the coffee industry, the demographics, how the market looked like and how we were gonna get out there. The strategy, what product we were gonna offer, what the pricing is and why we were gonna price it that way. We did all that. While I was doing all that (for the class), I was also doing personal stuff. I was going to the Ain Center and work on the Business Model Canvas. Also Simon (Business School) and the Center were having workshops on how to raise capital and how to pitch your idea. I would always go to those. I was also part of the Rochester Business Association and would learn about financial literacy too.”

Hector was going above and beyond for the class project. He wanted to make it a reality so he and the team applied to the Ain Center’s grant to build a prototype. That grant allowed them to buy some coffee beans, bags, and get them locally roasted. On top of that, the collaborative space at the University of Rochester “iZone” was hosting an event called “What’s your Big Idea?”

“I pitched my idea. No logo, no presentation, just 2 minutes of the idea. I pitched it, people loved it, judges had great feedback and they connected me with people who roast and are in the coffee game. Some people mentored me. That’s kind of how I started. It was the class, the Ain Center, and the iZone that took me to develop the idea and process it.”

After all the work Hector and the team put into the assignment, they got the highest grade and the best business plan. Impressively, after they presented the project, the class was eager to buy some coffee bags from them.

“Somebody was like “You guys have real coffee at the table, can I buy one of those?” and I was like What!? That’s crazy, she just wants to buy a bag. She asked me how much and I said “Well, the presentation said 17.95, that’s how much it costs.” So she gave me 20 and I didn’t have any change because I wasn’t expecting that but then she told me to keep it. And then other people started buying for 20 too. After that presentation, I went to my dorm and checked if the name Don Carvajal Cafe was available. I literally reserved it and then I did it; I started selling coffee.”

After reserving the company name Don Carvajal Cafe, Hector started advertising his coffee bags on Instagram. He encouraged his friends and acquaintances to support him and also get good quality coffee. As people started buying, Hector was able to save enough to build a website and expand the outreach. His goal? Supermarkets.

“During the summer, when I was interning for the College Board, I came down to the City. I was interning from 9–5 and then from 5–10, I was literally working on my coffee business. I would spend every weekend pitching to supermarkets and coffee shops. Coffee shops didn’t go too well but then when I got my first supermarket, it went really good. Then I got another one, and another one, and like that. Then it was the week before classes started again and I decided I was just gonna stay.”

Starting and managing any business is a lot. Particularly, for the coffee industry, the roasting, packaging, and distribution is very tied to the physical labor and it is very intense. Given that Hector didn’t raise capital to hire a full team, he knew that coming back to Rochester would make it impossible for him to continue running Don Carvajal Cafe. In his words, “when you are bootstrapping, you don’t get that luxury.”

Advice for students

“Properly do your research. Do something that you are passionate about. If you are not passionate about what you do, if you are just doing it for the money and not for the passion, as soon as something like COVID-19 happens, you are gonna give up. When something wrong happens, you might quit because you are not thinking about the passion and the long-term. It’s the idea of leading with passion and actually researching your industry very well, make sure there’s an opportunity out there too. It might be crazy to a lot of people but the idea is that if you really think it’s worth it, and you believe in yourself and your passion then that’s it.”

Hector is a wonderful young man. Every time I talk to him, I learn a new perspective and a new way of looking at entrepreneurship. I hope you enjoy his story and I hope you get to try his coffee at some point!

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Fernanda Sesto ’23 is majoring in business analytics at the University of Rochester. She is a student founder and works as a program assistant in the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship.

Bringing job shadowing opportunities to young professionals

By Fernanda Sesto, student Program Assistant

As a Program Assistant at the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship, I often come across a variety of entrepreneur profiles. From local founders of small businesses in Rochester, to UR researchers who started their own companies. I always find myself amazed by the incredible ventures these people are leading. However, I have to admit that the entrepreneur profile that intrigues me the most is the student one: how can someone manage to get a product or service to market successfully while taking college courses and not having tons of experience?

To answer this question, I’ve decided to write a series of student entrepreneurs spotlights. The purpose is to share the story of these passionate and ambitious students who are making an impact while pursuing their own studies. I hope this series can help other students who are leading their ventures or those who are thinking of starting a new business.

To launch the series, I interviewed Shelley Chen (‘20), a recent graduate at the University of Rochester who majored in International Relations and Business Entrepreneurship. She also participated in the e-5 Program which is a tuition-free program at the University of Rochester for graduates who propose to start a business or a project.

Shelley is the founder of Yolo Shadow, a shadowing marketplace that connects local organizations and businesses with travelers who look for authentic work experiences.

“I started Yolo Shadow two years ago as a class project when I was taking a very general entrepreneurship class. We were asked to do a group project to try to launch a business. By that time, I had just taken a trip to Hawaii where I got to job shadow a Ukelele instrument maker. So I got to see how a Ukelele was made in the most traditional way possible, using the local wood material. I learned how to use those materials to construct a Ukelele. I got to shadow this Ukelele maker for half a day and it was the best thing that happened during my trip.”

Later, Shelley realized that when she travels she prefers to really get to know the local culture of the places and that she doesn’t like going to the most touristic places. That’s how she got inspired to develop Yolo Shadow.

“Yolo Shadow is a marketplace where you can try any jobs in the world. At least that’s how we started, but then we realized this mission is kind of too big. So we toned it down to job shadowing with small business owners who actually started a craft store, an art shop, etc. I find those stories more personal, and it’s the art and visual aspect that makes the experience more interesting.”

Yolo Shadow currently has a team of eight students, Shelley included. They are split between the business team and the tech team in which UX/UI designers and developers work together. On the business side, they mainly focused on doing customer discovery so they interviewed a wide range of small business owners from photographers, artists, manufacturing companies, architects, and even henna tattoo artists. The purpose was to gain an understanding of what type of experiences could work best for Yolo Shadow. On the tech side, Shelley mentions that she didn’t bring anyone on board until she was sure the platform could actually bring value to the market. The first tech person to join was the UX/UI designer and by now they already have their MVP.

“I noticed at the end of the class that most of my classmates took the project just as a class project; they didn’t do any interview, they didn’t talk to any customer, they did some research online, put together a Power Point and submit it for a grade. I didn’t want Yolo Shadow to just be a letter grade. Actually, the people I worked on this for the class decided to not continue with it after so I had to recruit again. It took a lot of convincing, I had to talk to a lot friends and think “who can I bring on board?”, “who has the skills to make this a real thing?” . It was very hectic of course but it’s something I feel really passionate about so I would feel very comfortable just pitching it to my friends in the cafeteria.”

Shelley found the first developer while having lunch at one of the dining halls. She saw a lot of students asking him very technical questions and she thought he could be a very good person to be the technical lead. Then, she decided to pitch the idea to him right away and fortunately he agreed to join the team.

“Finding a team was definitely one of the most challenging things. Time management and scheduling was not a problem because I feel really passionate about this project so it comes natural to me.”

Yolo Shadow received funding from University of Rochester grants. They also participated in the Innov8 program in which they got a $3,000 grant, the Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition in which they were awarded $1,000, and the Regional Economic Development grant which was $1,000 as well. Shelley mentions that she decided to not raise venture capital because she’s working on Yolo Shadow part-time, thus as long as everyone on the team feels comfortable bootstrapping, they will continue like that.

Advice for students

“If you are looking to start a small business or a tech startup, I would say the most important thing is to identify a problem to solve. There is a lot of cool technology but if that piece of technology doesn’t solve a problem, you are not gonna be able to build a sustainable solution. When I started this project, I didn’t put all the resources into building something. Even though building something is very cool and exciting, you wanna make sure you’re building something that solves a problem. Customer discovery is something you have to be very patient with, listen to what your customers are saying, always get feedback right away so that you know you are building something customers really want.”

I had a wonderful talk with Shelley. She was very open and genuine with her story. I hope you enjoyed the reading and it inspired you as much as it inspired me!

Want to be featured in our entrepreneur series? Sign up here!

Fernanda Sesto ’23 is majoring in business analytics at the University of Rochester. She is a student founder and works as a program assistant in the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship.